Labourer Dunleavy, who worked on Edinburgh's trams project, denied murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by burying her to try to cover up the crime.

A jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted him, by majority, of a reduced charge of culpable homicide. They also found him guilty of the attempted cover-up between April and July last year.

By that time, Dunleavy had already been sent to the State Hospital, Carstairs. After the jury verdicts, Judge Lord Jones ordered that he should stay there while psychiatrists continued to assess his condition.

Dunleavy returned to court yesterday for the judge to decide the next move, which could have been an indefinite stay in the State Hospital.

Defence counsel Gordon Jackson said: "He doesn't want to go to Carstairs. He wants a prison sentence." The lawyer said medical reports had been prepared for the court but he felt it was his duty to have an independent person look at their recommendations.

Dunleavy will remain in the State Hospital pending a further court hearing.

Eldest

Mother-of-five Mrs Dunleavy had left her Dublin home in early April last year and arrived in Scotland on April 24 to visit her eldest son.

Prosecutors alleged that days later she was dead, butchered in Dunleavy's flat in Balgreen Road, Edinburgh.

Medics could not tell how she died and injuries to her head, smashed ribs and damage to small bones in her neck – often linked to strangulation – could have been sustained after her death.

It was more than a month before Mrs Dunleavy's remains were unearthed, just a few minutes walk away from her son's address.